This invention relates generally to the death care industry, and more particularly to caskets for and methods of memorializing a deceased.
Upon the death of a family member the surviving loved one of the deceased must make a number of decisions, including what type of funeral or other memorial service to hold, preparation of the body, selection of a suitable casket or cremation urn, etc. In the death care industry it is conventional for those decisions to be made in a so-called xe2x80x9carrangement conference xe2x80x9d In an arrangement conference, the funeral director meets with the surviving loved one of the deceased, typically in the funeral home of the funeral director, and describes to and discusses with the surviving loved one the various funeral products and services which are available. The funeral director may use visual aids such as a product catalog, product display board (such as that disclosed in the assignee""s U.S. Pat. No. 5,787,626 titled Funeral Product Display Case hereby incorporated by reference herein) and a casket selection room (such as that disclosed in the assignee""s U.S. Pat. No. 5,405,017 titled Modular Casket Display System and in the assignee""s pending application Ser. No. 09/638,576 titled Display For A Casket Selection and/or Viewing Room both hereby incorporated by reference herein) to illustrated the products available to the customer.
There is a trend in the death care industry to make efforts towards xe2x80x9cpersonalizingxe2x80x9d the funeral products and the funeral or other memorial service purchased for the deceased. Rather than selling xe2x80x9ccookie cutterxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cone size fits allxe2x80x9d caskets, as one example, manufacturers and funeral directors are now beginning to manufacture and offer many xe2x80x9ccustom modularxe2x80x9d variations thereby allowing the loved one to in essence design a specific casket especially suited to the deceased. For example, customers can select from a number of casket materials, casket finishes, casket corner adornments and casket interiors. Advances made in the area of xe2x80x9cquick changexe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9ctool lessxe2x80x9d fastening mechanisms have greatly facilitated the rapid removal of one accessory from the casket and the rapid installation of another more desirable accessory to the casket. In addition to promoting personalization of the casket to the deceased, such interchangeability greatly reduces the amount of inventory the funeral director must keep on hand. An example may be seen in the assignee""s pending application Ser. No. 09/660,574 titled Quick Change Casket Corner Attachment Mechanism and hereby incorporated by reference herein, commercially available from the Assignee as the LifeSymbols(copyright) line of interchangeable corner adornments.
The xe2x80x9ccustomxe2x80x9d casket interiors available to the funeral customer today include not only the internal lining material of the casket but also the decorative cap panels that fit within the underneath of the casket cap which serve to present a visually aesthetically pleasing appearance to the underside of the cap when in the open position. The cap panel can be embroidered with a favorite saying of the deceased, a scene depicting the deceased""s hobby, etc. Special cap panels have even been designed which, in addition to performing a memorial function while installed in the casket, are adapted to be presented to the loved one surviving the deceased to be displayed by the loved one in his or her home as a keepsake. See U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/165,990 titled Dish Assembly For A Burial Casket Cap assigned to the assignee of the present invention and hereby incorporated by reference herein, the subject of which is commercially available from the Assignee as the MemoryFrame(trademark) line of cap panels. The casket can also include a memorabilia drawer in which keepsakes of the deceased can be stored and displayed, as disclosed in the assignee""s U.S. Pat. No. 5,611,124 titled Casket Having Memorabilia Compartment and hereby incorporated by reference herein, commercially available from the Assignee as the MemorySafe(copyright) line of caskets including memorabilia drawers.
Advances have therefore been made in the area of xe2x80x9cpersonalizationxe2x80x9d of funeral products as demonstrated with the novel products discussed above. However, there continues to be room for improvement in the area of personalization in the death care industry.
The present invention is a method of producing memorial items for memorializing a deceased, a method of memorializing a deceased and a combination of memorial items for memorializing a deceased. The method of producing memorial items for memorializing a deceased comprises providing a casket in which to inter the deceased, providing a plaque to be presented to a loved one of the deceased as a memorial to the deceased, inscribing the casket with an inscription of memorialization and inscribing the plaque with the same inscription of memorialization.
The method of memorializing a deceased comprises providing a casket in which to inter the deceased, providing a plaque to be presented to a loved one of the deceased as a memorial to the deceased, inscribing the casket with an inscription of memorialization, inscribing the plaque with the same inscription of memorialization, interring the deceased in the inscribed casket and presenting the inscribed plaque to the loved one of the deceased.
The combination of memorial items for memorializing a deceased comprises a casket and a memorial plaque, with the casket and plaque having inscribed thereon the same memorialization inscription.
The casket and plaque may be engraved with the memorialization inscription, and may preferably be laser engraved with the memorialization inscription. The casket and plaque may also preferably be fabricated of matching wood or matching metal.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent during the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings herein, in which: